A terrified Buddhist monk found a huge python hiding in his car.

The serpent was seen crawling below the parked Mercedes Benz in front of the temple in Ratchaburi, central Thailand on October 15.

Monk Phra Ton, 60, said he was about to clean the car after almost a month of being left in the car park when the snake sprung out from underneath.

The startled reptile immediately crawled back into the engine after seeing him so he called the animal rescuers to help retrieve it.

Reptile handlers searched for the non-venomous snake but it was trapped in the engine after squeezing too deep in the narrow gaps to hide.

One of the rescuers was seen pulling the frightened snake out of the turbine before it peed on him out of fear.

Head rescuer Thiwa Phatchanhorm said: "The python might have been looking for a warm spot to settle down and found the sedan that was untouched for almost a month."

The volunteers spent almost half an hour before they untangled the snake from the turbines.

They took the wild snake with them in a big sack to be released back into the woods nearby.

After the rescue operation, superstitious locals rushed to the temple to ask for the car's license plate to use for their lottery tickets.

Local beliefs suggest that animal encounters, especially strange ones, can bring luck.